DescriptionThe space of confinement provides intimate grounds for identity play. In particular, immured women acquire a deeply close experience of sound and voice in small quarters, granting them opportunities to challenge, query, and trouble the boundaries of gender identity. Stemming from the documented history of medieval anchoresses, a Hegelian architecture of confinement is investigated through the lenses of material feminism and sound theory. An introductory history of medieval anchoresses is given, as well as scholarship regarding female spirituality in the medieval era. Medieval anchoress Julian of Norwich and the Ancrene Wisse provide evidence of sound experience in confinement, while the life of Christina Markyate establishes grounds for choosing enclosure. In using the literary texts of Jane Eyre, A Room of One’s Own, and Antigone, and through application of Julia Kristeva’s abjection and Jeffrey Cohen’s post-humanism, boundaries of the enclosure are investigated and subsequently destabilized, making room for gender inquiry.